Medical imaging, for example mammography, may use low-energy X-rays as part of a diagnostic and a screening tool to examine patient tissue. Mammography, for example, is used for the detection of breast cancer, typically through detection of characteristic masses contained within the patient tissue. X-ray exposure time, during mammography, may be for several seconds.
Mammography requires that the patient tissue being examined be compressed using a dedicated compression unit (e.g., a parallel-plate compression unit) to even out the thickness of the patient tissue which may increase image quality by reducing a thickness of patient tissue that X-rays have to penetrate. However, compression of patient tissue can be painful for a patient and may result in the patient moving and, in turn, moving the patient tissue during imaging.
When the patient tissue moves during imaging, images acquired by mammography may be blurred and unusable for diagnosing the patient tissue. Since, determining if an image is blurred only occurs after the images are taken, and the images are examined by a technician, a patient may have to endure multiple exposures to X-rays until a clear image is obtained.
Therefore, it would be desirable to design a system and method that allows for determining if an image is blurred while the image is being taken.